The town of Bishdunumul is not large, and hosts only perhaps fifteen hundred inhabitants. Aside from the temple, the manor of the mayor, and the round tower used as a guardhouse there are no large structures. The tower is notable as a structure raised centuries ago as the stronghold of one of the last wizards to dare to claim territory openly in Shdustu. The khagan took exception to this arrogance and stormed the town and executed the wizard, but they left the tower in place. Overall, this is a very modest place, heavily influenced by the poverty that follows isolation from major trade routes. Aside from the local priest, who was trained in Summugigus, and the elderly healer, there were no other mystics in residence. The buildings were humble, and many were in disrepair due to an absence of skilled craftsmen.

Despite these difficulties, compounded by the poor soil of the surrounding badlands that offers little chance for a steady crop and supports forage only by a few scraggly sheep, the people here are well-fed and hearty. The lake provides for them. It is a deep pool, fed primarily by snowmelt, and has no outlet. In this way it resembles the sea to the south, but on a much more modest scale that can be encompassed simply by scaling nearby hills. Though the water is salty compared to most mountain pools, it remains drinkable. Fish and shrimp flourish in its waters, which grow wild with bright green weed in the summer months. This plant, which is not found elsewhere in the badlands, seems to have been sourced from far away by a traveler with distinct intent to transform the area. It is edible and forms a secondary part of most meals. I found these stems to be broadly tasteless, but they were preserved, perhaps it is better fresh.

Trees grown on the edge of the lake provide fuel, which kept us blessedly warm as we sheltered from the blizzard. The mayor, a minor noble whose title is inherited, pays homage to the authority of the prince of Summugigus, though the relationship is distant and largely ceremonial. The town is defended only by militia, not a garrison of soldiers. Though there were no proper merchants, the mayor bargained on behalf of the village. He purchased the entire stock Master Nemin had brought, for cloth was in short supply in a land of barren hills. This was replaced by salt, which is produced in pan pools dug out of the hard soil of the badlands and then flooded. Salt is highly valued, and suitable for trade in any location, but few merchants bother to travel to this isolated place. Most of the locals, though Nikkad by dress and speech, retained few of the typical customs of their kind. They neither kept scorpions nor used purple dye, but instead decorated their clothing using a pale reddish pigment extracted from the lake’s shrimp. This place was not a repository of knowledge, and none of the residents knew anything of the Sanid Empire. To them, Shdustu was the whole of the world, a steppe that continued on forever.

Such is the burden of a town alone, a trait that seems common to all communities severed from intellectual exchange.

Snow fell for three straight days. All those within the village whispered endlessly that this boded ill, and they kept their handful of horses and oxen secure, tied beneath their shelters, to prevent them from rolling in the wet snow and having it freeze atop their bodies in the night. The elderly healer, who had experienced such spring snows several times, said that it was a killing storm, and many animals would die, livestock and wild alike. She claimed the year to come would be bitterly difficult, with catastrophic suffering. Fewer animals mean less meat and milk in Kharal pots, which drives them to more raiding. This becomes more violence for everyone, as all other peoples must respond in kind in order to secure all they need to survive out the year. This pattern, the suffering unleashed by a hard spring, is irregular but continual, and any lifetime of length will see it reappear. A similar pattern occurs with great droughts in the Core Provinces, but in many ways, this is worse. Grain may be stored up in good years to allay the bad, but livestock cannot be supported in the same fashion. It does much to explain the lack of unity in this land. When the snow comes and the calves die, to stand united is to watch all starve.

Bishdunumul, with its lake to rely upon, and birds, which serve as a very important additional food source, that began to arrive the day the snow ceased falling, is insulated against the worst of the weather’s influence. Their burden, in hard years, is defense. Desperation collapses distance, and a Kharal raid is sure to come at some point in the coming year. The mayor repeatedly tried to convince the Stone Shields to remain and serve as an addition to the town’s defense. Sergeant Tarn, dreaming of rich contracts on the troubled roads, refused this. A steady contract waiting about could not match the allure of gold. For my part, I convinced Master Nemin to push harder when we returned to the road in the hope of joining up with a larger caravan to provide mutual defense. The days of journeying as an expedition that feared no one were a distant memory by this point.

We spent four days in the town, four waiting for the snow to melt, and a one day pause for weekly services. Being broadly idle during this time, I spent many hours in discussion with the priest regarding history and the local environment. Once the snow began melting, I spent the days on the lakeshore, by this time mostly cleared of ice, working with Lady Indili in an effort to catch the red shrimp that are said to live in this lake and nowhere else. This effort was unsuccessful, and in order to find images of the lake denizens I was forced to rely upon paintings made by the mayor’s mother. These paintings, carefully preserved, were of excellent quality. One of these, of a woodpecker with red, white, and black mixed plumage, was very fine, and the mayor gifted this to me in return for a copy of the map I produced of the lakeshore and badlands. This painting, which I was eventually able to return to my family’s estate, was the only item acquired during the entirety of the expedition that I kept for myself.

The ties to the lake color the unique character of this settlement in many ways. The salty water used in irrigation does not suffice to allow any grain to be grown here, and nuts, vegetables, and the aquatic weed are needed to fill their plates. There is little large game, though marmots and birds are abundant. Red dye taken from the shrimp is used instead of that sourced to scorpions, and the poisons used here are taken from plants and strange clams that live on the lake’s bottom. The latter is valued by alchemists, and a small amount was secured in trade prior to our departure. The townsfolk here felt less sharp-eyed than in other Nikkad settlements, though they remained wary of outsiders.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Beyond the lake, the primary curiosity of the town is the round tower. An ascending spire that gradually narrows as it rises and is capped with a flat top stone roof lacking any defenses, it serves as both local legend and architectural oddity. Nikkad-built towers are usually made of brick or rammed earth and are accordingly square-sided. This tower is entirely stone, which is especially unusual give that the badlands offer no suitable stone for building, only weak shale that crumbles in the hand. The rest of the town is made of pressed earth. The locals claim the wizard built the tower using stones taken from the bottom of the lake. This seems rather unlikely, as I was able to drag the bottom of the lake and determined it was both quite deep and full of mud. I suspect the stones used to make the tower, which are a dark charcoal-shaded basalt, come from some place deep beneath the badlands. The ancient wizard must have operated a deep shaft mine that has since collapsed. Regional legend speaks of a great burrowing serpent, perhaps similar to the giant worms of the Shdus Desert, that would prey upon young women and could swallow a camel whole. Such a creature, if compelled to the purpose of excavation, could extract stone from far below the surface. A seemingly absurd idea, but I never saw stone of this kind exposed anywhere in eastern Shdustu.

The towers walls are quite stout, with only small and narrow windows. Though any divine essence bound up in the construction has long since faded, many of the stones bear carved marks that mirror those found on the walls in the tombs of the wizard-king in the Tasgusun Hills. This suggests they were used to strengthen the masonry long ago. Such a fortification would have presented a considerable challenge to the Kharal seeking to destroy the wizard, especially as the barren nature of the badlands makes hosting a large cavalry force in the area difficult. A suitable home for a wizard retreating from ruler into hermitage in the face of new arrivals. Local legend claims the town was founded by a lady warrior who slew a demon infesting the tower. The description of the fight is musical but wildly implausible and matches the sort of deception common in Nikkad tales generated to cover a victory based in poison-backed assassination. I suspect that the Kharal besieged the tower and an apprentice or mistress with alchemical training poisoned the wizard. It is difficult for wizards to be slain in this way, but the Nikkad are very skilled at their craft.

It is almost certain that the people of this place began living here under wizard rule, but despite the color of their garments, they are clearly Nikkad now. Whether the original inhabitants interbred with newcomers or were driven off by them cannot be known. There are no other local stories, and the people use the traditional tales of princes and alchemists that can be heard all across Shdustu. It is somewhat strange to hear stories that prominently feature scorpions in a town that contains none, though I imagine that the ground of the badlands explodes with natural forms during the summer.

Aquatic weeds are just as capable of feeding camels as humans, and these seemingly iron stomached beasts put on significant weight chomping their way along the shoreline. The horses were an exception, and the locals cautioned that they must not consume this weed or sicken seriously. In response to this, and to the considerably lighter and more compact aspect of salt compared to hides and furs, we reorganized the caravan. The horses were unburdened and allowed to walk free while the camels were loaded down as before. By the time we departed there was still a crust of snow upon the trail, but it was much reduced and pressed down easily beneath our boots. Whiteness made navigation difficult, but enough of the buttes had cleared to allow Master Nemin to find the way and there were no great difficulties.

Though the mercenaries remained watchful for Sunfire Cultists, badlands being ideal for the hidden hillforts of such desperate persons, we saw none. It seems that they were content to take shelter in their scraped-out hovels rather than attempt to raid. Zealotry may be a comfort to those with nothing, but heresy is poor protection against the cold.

The power of the winter was visited upon us most viscerally after we exited the badlands and returned to the route south. Shortly after we made the turn the sharp eyes of the Bronzegrass Explorers detected the shine of metal atop the snow. They investigated this and discovered the remains of four men and six camels, frozen in a drift beside a stream whose weak ice they must have fallen through when attempting to cross during the blizzard. The camels had been slit open across their bellies by desperate men seeking warmth before the end, but even such measures did not suffice. A most tragic fate indeed.

We removed the clothing from these men, washed the bodies using snow, covered their faces, and then carried the remains up to the top of a nearby hill for exposure that they might feed the cycle and be released below as is proper. As the appointed officer of the expedition, and in the absence of a priest, I read the prayers out. I am grateful to the teachers who drilled those words into me as a youth, and for Princess Romou’s efforts to acquaint all the officers with the essential ritual prayers, but it was nevertheless a most terrible task to conduct. I hope these fallen will bear no grudges in the next life because of my thoroughly amateurish performance.

As for the camels, we tied and pulled them far enough from the stream so they would not pollute the waters when the bodies thawed. Master Nemin opined that it was a shame they had frozen solid, and we could not reclaim the hides. Their loads, mostly stoneware dishes, had been largely shattered during the animals’ death throes. We scavenged a small sack of bowls and a case of silver utensils, nothing more. Coins carried by the caravaneers, along with a small quantity of gems hidden in a boot, and the knives belonging to each man represented a greater, but still modest, windfall. I did not enjoy scavenging from the dead, but as the Enlightened Revelation states, to let that which has been taken from the earth and shaped be lost is wastage, and all that can be used again should be.